Announcing that Bombardier will obtain the contract to build the new Montreal's underground wagons was politically very good. If a restricted trade is generally bad, in that particular case the government had to take into account the real market conditions.

Some columnists, such as Vincent Marissal and Michèle Boisvert in La Presse, denounced that deal between the Governement of Quebec and Bombardier. If they are theoretically right, their position cannot stand in reality. Even though 100% free trade is better, I wonder who think it's feasible nowadays?

Marissal wrote that he was worried that the trade limitation would make the Quebec reputation on international markets worst. As if we were the only ones to restrict trade! France is highly protecting its agricultural industry, while the Americans wrote the very concept of protectionnism in the "Buy American Act"! In addition, the government has anticipated probable excess and has adopted measures to prevent it.

The Charest's decision is then good. It will allow to maintain highly paid jobs in regions for years, to encourage a firm strongly affected by the economic conditions recently and to maintain Quebec's advantage in the industry (the only other firm building pneumatic wagons in the world is the French Alstom). In short, may be the columnists should go out and observe the reality. Whatever they could say, that decision was the good one for Quebec.

1 comment:

The trade agreement is definitely not perfect these days by any means. But it is certainly much better than the arrangement we had before FTA and NAFTA were ratified and then approved. If anything, it[NAFTA] has brought the practice of regressive tariff use to a minimum.